Exhausted, used heart - bruised sapped by heat-suck hectic urban. I need to escape – shedding its labels of suffocation. The embrace of the trees is cool, slumbering green. Breathing growth – wild, verdant, and dreaming serene. Aboriginal voices whisper; the heart of the forest beats. Calling, leading me – yearning for an intangible, unsaid need. Now – the cardinal spirit rises august before me. Fostered by an attendant cascade branches open, unconditional. Surrender, rest, hush - flutter-thoughts from the leaves. Hoary knuckle straddled legs dangling, toes licked by the laughing stream. Moss cossets temple and cheek, tenderly pressed to the living beam. In primal, ancient rhythm saps rises, fecund potent through my veins. It bursts in sweet dewdrops Father-tree sips from my skin. In the secret viridian I am served, refreshed in beatific communion. To sleep – fulfilled and curled in the cleft of a nurturing dream